Wolverine

The claws are dull.

Or at least that's my conclusion after seeing the underwhelming X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Wolverine is supposed to be a bad-ass, the beserker-angry superhero with the enigmatic past, the retractable claws and the indestructible adamantium-lined skeleton that makes him hard to kill.

And yet, this bad-ass is watered down, the joy of seeing him rip apart some bad guys muted, all by a sucky script and confusing directing by Gavin Hood, who was responsible for the much better art-house film, Tsotsi, a few years back. Some directors have successfully made the jump from independent film making to the big leagues (David Fincher comes to mind, for example).

Hood isn't one of those cats.

He doesn't film action that well so that you're on the edge of your seat in awe of what's on the screen. The film, instead, felt flat, though there were some action sequences that did thrill to the bone, especially the fight scenes between Wolverine and his brother, Victor (aka Sabretooth), who desperately needs a manicure (a man shouldn't have nails that long).

And Hugh Jackman tries mightily to imbue his Wolverine with enough soul to make audience members, both fan and non fan alike, give a damn about what happens to his character. Liev Schreiber gives his Victor a charismatic snarl, and the movie lights up a bit everytime he's on the screen.

Ryan Reynolds as the sword-swiveling Wade and Will.I.Am as John Wraith make their mark in the short time that they have in the movie.

The real problem is the script. The story just isn't compelling. Not that I expect the why-so-serious philosophical underpinnings of The Dark Knight. But here, we get no explanation about why Wolverine and Victor hate each other so much. We gain no more insight into Wolverine that we didn't get from the previous three X-Men movies. And the climactic fight scene was merely meh.

Don't get me wrong. The movie wasn't awful. We'll save that descriptive to movies that truly deserve it like Daredevil or The Punisher.

But for a movie that was so anticipated that it got leaked online, I was expecting more. I wanted sharper claws.